Sunday, November 2, 2008

Boilermaker - Boilermaker

This post was unfortunately spawned by the sad news earlier this week that bassist and lead singer of Boilermaker died after a lengthy battle with cancer. R.I.P. Terrin Durfey.

Although Boilermaker had ceased as a band many years ago, Durfey had gone on to play in The Jade Shader and Pinback, and more importantly the musical legacy of Boilermaker continues to influence bands that write earnest, heartfelt music. If you ever liked Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, old Jimmy Eat World, or any of the actual emo (not the current incarnation) rock of the middle 1990's then you'll dig this one for sure.

The guitarist was from Spanakarzo, if that helps at all.

I used to live in San Diego, but Boilermaker had wound things up by that time, so I never got to see them play. I did catch the band Electric Nazarene a couple times which was the stoner/space/doom rock band that the guitarist and drummer from Boilermaker went on to do. They were excellent as well. In other trivia, I lived for a summer in Isla Vista, California during the height of the Heartattack fanzine / Ebullition records eras, and found myself doing record reviews for said fanzine. That was where I first heard Boilermaker, when I got their album "In Wallace's Shadow" in my pile of things to review. Needless to say, I was floored, the instrumentation was dynamic and powerful, the vocals were tuneful and magnetic, you could actually sing along. For my money, there were two bands operating at the same time that nobody really remembers, but who were better than anyone else at this style, and that's Boilermaker and Castor. I'll get some Castor up here at some point, but for now, listen to Boilermaker and sing along.

3 comments:

you lived in IV and wrote for heartattack, eh? i wonder if you knew my friend steve s from pennsylvania? he moved there in 1997-ish. he worked at a co-op. he helped local emo band stratego put out a 12" ep and also a 7" i think. he would have been in his mid-30s then.